music · 01 September 1976 · 49 years ago
'Wish You Were Here' was close to spending one year on the UK chart. Pink Floyds ninth studio had been premiered at Knebworth in July 1975, and was released in September that year. It was an instant success, with record company EMI unable to press enough copies to satisfy demand. The artwork for the album package was once again created by the Hipgnosis team, who created a series of tableaux based on absence, including the empty gesture of a handshake between two US business men (one of whom is on fire), a diver that causes no ripples, and a piece of gauze floating in the wind, photographed somewhere in Norfolk, UK.